 Hello and welcome to the drum history podcast. I'm your host Bart van der Zee and today I'm super pumped to be joined by Bill Dettemore the head hog of pork pie percussion bill welcome to the podcast Thank you very much. I appreciate you having me Absolutely, so you yourself it's like we're here to talk about pork pie But we're also just talking about you in general because you've got quite the background So let's maybe expand it about bill Dettemore kind of as a person and then get into pork pie because you have backgrounds with DW you've painted many famous drummers drums. You you're just kind of a really like a Rock in the industry who's kind of always doing cool things, but has a very level head. So bill all that being said Why don't you I mean you can go back to your beginning with drums and what got you into it And then just take us through the whole story with what led to pork pie, and then we'll get into pork pie sure sure so when I was Probably 15 give or take I told my folks that I wanted to I Wanted to learn how to play drums and they said, you know You've been in and out of hobbies and it's been it's cost us to fortune. So if you want to do it You have to figure it out So we're not gonna we're not gonna put money out. You have to figure it out which My parents were children of the depression So having to figure it out was nothing new for myself or my brothers. I mean it was nothing new any Bicycles, you know, I used to race BMX and motorcycles and I had to I had to fix everything I had to yeah, we had to do everything on our own And and that was just out of their Their upbringing. I mean people that lived through the depression and what 34 wars, you know, you have a different perspective on What's important and what's not important? Yeah, and So what happened was I was riding my stingray through through the neighborhood and There was this guy in the neighborhood his name was Tony That's as much as I remember about him and I remember I distinctly remember riding by his house and Hearing drums come out of his garage and since I knew him I went up and I went inside and He had this giant drum set just I mean there were toms everywhere and you know and I I said Because you know, we came from the same neighborhood the same age And I knew he was broke like like me, you know 15 years old and I said, how did you afford this giant drum set? And he said, oh, it's really simple He said you go to Music stores because at the time there were you know music and drum stores everywhere and He said I find pieces So none of the pieces matched, but none of the kit matched and he showed me, you know He took a drum and turned it over and he said all these screws take off all the all the parts the lugs and he said there's a Plastics place a plastics store like they sold acrylic and Vinyl and stuff like that and they had PVC vinyl thin PVC vinyl and he said what you do is you go to Gemma light plastics And in the same town in Willing Hills and you you cut the piece to size and you wrap it around and figure out how to Seal the you know put it together. I ended up using crazy glue Because I had no idea what else to do sure and he said you poke a hole and put the lugs back on and all of a sudden You have a drum set that is all matching Wow So the first drums that I had that I had in my bedroom. I Borrowed two pieces a Tom and a bass drum. It was probably a 20 inch bass drum and probably a 12 inch Tom and a hi-hat stand and The hi-hat symbols were so thin that if you press down with your foot too much. They would invert, you know, they would fold out Yeah, so I remember the first and you know, I had no hardware so I had a chair in my room and I got some wire that my father had and I figured out how to turn the chair backwards and And use the wire around the tension rods to hold the Tom up over the bass drum Then after I played that for a while and and got hi-hats that wouldn't invert when you stepped on them too hard Then I started buying individual drums and then changing the finish on them and That's how I ended up with my first drum set, you know, I feel like drummers it And musicians in general who start as a kid can really trace back what they do for the rest of their life as a kid I mean you're 15 years old and That's really set you up for what you've done for the rest of your life, which is pretty cool. I mean not everyone has that It's very neat. Yeah, and you know what my mother Bless her heart. She used to she used to say she told me this so many times she said She says I have no idea what it is about those drums But the minute that you started playing them, that's all you did all the time that's all I did and So that led into you know when I am after I played that one kit for a while. I remember I went out and bought it Mel Xelnik's music stop, which is just down the street from my shop here In kind of the park It was a really it was a great drum store, you know, he used to have Like Wednesday nights or Thursday nights. He would have Open drum night and he would have everybody come in and you would go in and and you would trade fours and you know, then he would play he was an old jazz drummer cool and He was just you know the the guy who You know He was there for the art and some of the guys that would come into that To hang out with us was Mark Schulman was one of the guys because he grew up in this area and Bruce Becker and Then they would bring Bruce Bruce Becker in with his brother David and they would do a little little jazz combo and they would you know play some some jazz for us and Everybody would have a turn playing you know playing and trading fours and you know You you learn real fast when you're sitting down with somebody that's a lot more professional with you You learn really fast what trading fours means. Don't play over me Count four bars and then stop. Okay, so just stop and then I'll do four bars and you come back So so we used to do that my friends and I would do that quite often then at that time. This would have been 1977 probably Way before anything digital, you know, I mean way way way before anything digital There was a local LA newspaper that was called the penny saver and they had Sections and one of them was drums or guitars or musical instruments and you could find people that were selling things so I would go and buy things by by snare drums and I would buy them and bring them home and tear them apart and rebuild them and clean them and then resell them So it was it was a nice fun little hobby. Well, I mean drums have I would say versus like a Synthesizer there's kind of a lower barrier of entry to taking it apart to some degree Obviously, you've mastered it and no there's sonically. There's more to it But really the the bare bones like structure of it is lugs wood hoops a skin. You can get a drum going So for a kid, it's pretty it's pretty like attainable and then from there you can go nuts and spend your whole life doing it But you know, you were a kind of you were a smart little little guy to be getting this all going and Working, I mean you worked hard at it. Obviously Well, you know when I when I to earn the money to get to get all those first pieces that I had I mean I was mowing lawns You know, I would go up and mow the lawns on every every house on our block and that's how I'd made made money I spent my entire Saturday mowing lawns so I could get money to go out and buy drum stuff funny story about my father is that When he was probably 18 ish, you know, right out of there either in high school or right in high school He spent some of his time Doing auto body repair and I said, how did you figure that out? And he said well, I Applied for the job and they said, you know how to do any of this stuff and I he said well Sure, I do and then he went home and called us, you know went to his father and said hey I need to know, you know the basics of body work and he would call you go Oh, yeah, let me call Fred and he called Fred and Fred would go, okay So here's the things that you do and he would go there and he worked I mean he worked as a body shop guy with no training. He was a jeweler with no training I mean he did everything that he did was, you know, wow with no training He figured it out. Did he teach you anything about painting because I've always seen I mean you Europe You paint a lot in which I'm sure we'll talk about throughout this But did you learn from your dad how to do that? Yeah, that's where I first started. I actually Made a spray booth in their garage because I wasn't living at their house at the time So I made a spray booth in their garage out of four pieces of plywood and And a circular fan on one side of it, but I would walk in on this, you know through this door that I made and Paint the first things I painted where I bought some guitar bodies. I painted those and Did nothing but piss off the neighbors because I was using lacquer because I didn't know anything other than lacquer at the time And he showed me he had the materials or the tools to spray lacquer and he he had this little gauge I had no idea what it's what it's called But it was like a cup and it had a hole in the bottom and you would fit you would mix up your paint With the paint and the reducer and you would put it in there And you saw how fast it drained out of the bottom of it And that's how you gauged how thick your paint was supposed to be so he had all that stuff at the house So he showed me how to use that gauge and how to mix and you know, you don't want to do this too much Don't do this too much can't be too thick. You get don't put it on tooth. You know, he did all that But that was that was all he taught me everything else. I taught myself Well, I think now we live in I mean YouTube is awesome. You can learn so much off YouTube, but there's something It's the next level is when you actually have hands-on teaching from someone which I think is How people really really get the knowledge like from you and yeah with your dad, right? So what I what I I see these guys on Usually Facebook because you know, you can have a more of a conversation there And they'll say yeah, I think I'm gonna buy all of these tools from Drummaker or whoever, you know, I don't I don't know people who sell the tools or a matte how to A marking mat, you know, you put it. Yeah, it's a roll-up mat and you roll it out and it's got all the lines So you sure drum on there and you can show where the lugs are. I mean when I started None of this stuff existed. I had to make it all so I took actually I have right here. It's a little dusty but From when I was in school When I was in college. Oh, yeah Study drafting and that's a technical drawing. So yeah, yeah, I was a technical illustrator Wow, and I also did drafting. Wow. So what I did was I took a piece of cardboard and I made a circle that was for let's just talk about a snare drum because it's easy I made a circle on the cardboard that was 13 and 7 8's and then I had my center point and then I figured out by Taking pie and dividing it by 10 How far apart all the lines are? That's how I made my first Marking templates and to this day to show you I am a firm believer a firm believer That the more you physically touch Something you're making That that is what makes it cool. Yeah, right as you're right. I mean that is cool I think making making something from nothing is the coolest thing you can do. Yes So the marking templates that we have now that we still use to this day are all made using that same principle We live in a great time now where things are accessible to you But I almost equate it to like like for me in school if I would hand write notes I would remember things better versus typing it out or just reading it Like if I copy fit something down and write it myself I feel like it went into my brain forever and I think it's that of course physically touching something and and that clearly just throughout your whole career You're a maker. I mean you're a doer and a maker and and that's I think clear in pork pie because you signed I'll show you later, but I have a pork pie snare from 2002 Which signed by you and dated on the inside and everything So getting back on the timeline of like your your life and everything so we were in the late 70s you were Still doing this for fun, right? You had not become like a you're not making money at it yet. You're still learning So what what happens from there? Okay, so I start I got my a degree at Pierce College here close close to here and I Was working for working at Rocketdyne on the space shuttle program And Rocketdyne used to be right at the street from here And Rocketdyne is the company that made them the main engines that were on the space shuttle So I was working there in the technical illustration department putting together presentations. So let's say a Shuttle went up then we would put a presentation together that showed how the engines worked to how they you know how they performed and that would go to management and then I also did some some Drafting there and you know a lot of different things that I did there and what was cool about that it was I I graduated from Pierce Yeah, let's say June 10th and on June 11th. I had a job. So that was that was a cool thing So while I was working there always reading modern drummer There was two things that were pivotal for me And that was I Was just I loved reading the stories from about Pat Foley and Paul Jamison Paul Jamison was Jeff Piccaro's tech And Pat Foley was the guy in town that was buying old radio Kings and he was buying old radio Kings and giving him a Nice paint job as nice as it could be at that time And That's kind of what started feeding the you know buy him and rebuild them when I first started I would just clean him up and it just resell them and hopefully I just made my money back But then later on it was buying Buying snare drums and pulling them all apart and in packing the lugs and cutting the bearing edges and you know Putting them together change the throw off, you know all that stuff And then that that with that I could I could sell them and make a little bit of profit But I was working at Rocketdyne. So it was just something to do on the side But in modern drummer There was a company called the quarter drum company And the quarter drum company When fives went under The quarter drum company bought all the tooling and everything from fives And made it the quarter drum company. So they had that That you know the fives lug I'm trying to draw with my finger here. They they have the fives lug and the spurs and you know all that stuff So they had an advertisement in the back of modern drummer that says We that they sold a kit to make your own snare drum So it would be the shell and it would be the lugs and a throw off and butt plate and hoops And it might have had heads, but it was just a raw shell with no holes or anything so I I bought one of those and Again, my father, you know, telling me how to paint teaching me how to paint. So I would paint it and then I would cut the edges and put it together and sold that one And then with what I made on that then I bought two and four and six And you know, that's that's basically how the the company started what I love is so I've got a fives episode with Tommy Robertson There's a quarter episode with Don quarter and uh, and I don't think I have a Darwin episode I'll have to do that to complete my trifecta of that that background, but it's it's neat to know that you're involved It's just that had that the fives thing had such kind of uh, I don't know like, uh, it's really Pivotal and a lot of the history of a lot of Drum history and brands and things it's neat to know you're included in that It had it had a very uh a long reach a longer reach than people know about good way to put it. Yep. So then I started, uh, you know buying and selling snare drums with my logo on it and Actually when I was working at rocket diners when I came up with the with the logo and in downtime I did the first, uh Little pig guy that I had I uh, I I drew that I hand drew that Um, and then I I saw a uh font And uh, we had these big books that had all kinds of fonts in them, you know And because again, it wasn't nothing was online. Everything was you know in a book Sure. So I found a uh font that's called baby's teeth And I thought that would look cool and I I spelled out Pork pie with uh with baby's teeth and I said, you know that oh, it just looks dumb It looks it doesn't fit So then I took my little pig guy and I put him where the o was and that's how the logo was created Man, that's so cool to hear that. But all right. So rewind a little bit like what made you think pork pie? Oh, uh, so this video Was a movie or is a movie from australia And it is called goodbye pork pie And uh, it's a quirky fun little movie Uh, nobody over here has ever heard about it people in australia know about it But nobody over here australia new zealand people know about it. So my friend mark and I were sitting in my living room having a couple of beers And we were trying to think of a name and that movie was on it was playing We were watching that movie and uh, I looked at him and I said marky What do you think about the name pork pie percussion and he goes it's fabulous But you don't have the guts to do it. I'm like, okay, that's the name Wow, and I I quickly learned as a kid Uh looking on the internet, uh, I feel like it was like before google existed, but like about pork pie hats You know because I would search pork pie and I'd be like, uh, this isn't what I want. I want the drums Yeah, yeah That's cool, man And then you design the logo when you're on the clock at work very smart And then you're out you're off and running. So you're now a business owner I was probably doing, uh Everything for about five years before I decided to make it a business So it was uh, that whole time was spent learning and trying and you know screw and stuff up Um and figuring figuring everything out early 80s Uh, yes, uh from about 82 83 I got my business license in 1987 November 28th 1987. So, uh, you know this year is I believe it's if my math is correct I believe this year is 36 years. Wow When did it was there a day that you walked in you're very like I mean that's a Your your job as an illustrator was something that like parents would be proud of You know what I mean like you're working on rockets Was there a day that you Took the step and walked in and left your job to do this full time. I mean, what was that like? Well, what happened was, uh, so drum workshop at the time they were, uh, uh, just When I say just they were just getting started making drums And I mean when I say just getting started They weren't they were not making drums, but they wanted to start So, um One day, uh in, uh 1988 It would have been somewhere around crib be somewhere between Christmas and Thanksgiving, I think Uh Yeah, it was between Christmas and Thanksgiving. I get I received a call from john good from dw And uh, he said hey, we're doing our first nam show Um in january, which was like four weeks away five weeks away something like that And uh, he said, uh, we're having problems with the finishes on our drums So we would like you to come out and help us get these drums ready for the show So I took my uh at rockett time. We always had two weeks off christmas week and then the week before Between christmas and new years. So I spent that entire, uh, vacation Uh working for drum workshop And basically what I was doing was I was sanding and buffing all of the finishes that they had for for the show so we would, uh They were whoever did the finish. I don't know who that was But they didn't sand and buff it so there was like little specks of dust and little this and little that and a run or you know Whatever it was So they had me come in and and color sand everything And then buff it and then it could go to the other gentleman. His name was manny To do all of the drilling and edges and everything else. So at that time As hard as it is to believe drum workshop was A two-man operation in the drum department. It was me and manny. So after the uh after the show Uh, I kept on working their painting and um Then uh, uh, I I was working at rockett dine between 40 and 60 hours a week And then when I got off there, then I whatever time it was then I would go out to a drum workshop and I'd work till midnight one two in the morning and Then I'd come home and do it all over again. And I was doing my own stuff at the same time man, so I went to john good, um uh, and I said basically I have I'm out of gas completely And you either bring me on full time or I have to quit And they hired me Geez now it's just about this time in 1988 That they hired me it was june 1988 And I worked I worked there for one year And then um, I had been become so busy with the pork pie That I thought So here's the thing in the timeline I was single I had a dog I had rent And my car was paid for and I had a ton of money in the bank from uh, uh from working at rockett dine So I living the dream right there. You can do a whole lot when you're single No car payment paying rent not even a mortgage and keeping up your house and stuff like that, but man you you fully seized it Uh You can do things when you have kids. I'm we're doing this right now I mean we both you can get things done, but it's a hell of a lot easier when you're uh fancy free You know working 100 hours a week. Oh sure sure. Yeah. Wow. I remember it was a sunday night It was a sunday night and I called my mother And I uh, I said hey, uh, I'm gonna quit my job tomorrow and she uh, you know very quiet on the other end And she said, uh, do you think you can do it? And I said I honestly have no idea, but if I'm gonna do it I have to do it now You know, I it just this is uh, this is the time So funny story about that. So then I went in and quit and I gave them, uh, I said I won't leave you until you have somebody in that I can fully train And you know, we you know, I'm not going to leave you hanging and so I left and I still have a great relationship with With everybody at DW. I mean, I was on the phone on Thursday, I was on the phone with John Good for over an hour Just catching up, you know, and I see I talked to Don. I I know Chris really well, you know, I know all those guys Yeah, so, um Uh, so I quit and then the first day Uh, the first day of being self-employed My my the thing that I made myself do Uh is I was not allowed to touch Um any of my savings I had to I had to make it happen without, you know, eating up everything that I had in savings so, um My first day of being self-employed I get a call from a guy. His name is Jim Carnelli and he said I just bought a Noble and Cooley He said I heard you're the guy to do edges I said well, I'd be happy to do them for you. So he brought it brought the drum over to my house took it apart And he was sitting behind me. I was in a garage. I barely had any tools or anything. I had a little router table and um He was sitting behind me and it was June in LA. So it was very hot very sweaty So I'm cutting the edge and my hands were sweaty and I dropped the drum And it so here's the router blade right here And it fell right on the router blade and it took a chunk out of the edge And he had just he had left he had left a store called valley arts and Came to my house with the drum. So he didn't even own the drum two hours and I ruined it So I stopped and I stood there and I turned the router off and I just he said is there a problem and I said Well, I just ruined your drum And he came over and he he looked at it and he goes well, what do we do? And I said, okay, well follow me We went up into my bedroom and I called gary levine who was the manager at valley arts and I said gary I need some help. I just uh the drum that you just sold to uh jim carnelly. I just ruined I need to buy him a new one And uh, so I drove him over to valley arts And I bought him a brand new noble and coulee And gave it to him and the funny thing about that the really funny thing about that whole situation that I can laugh about now Is that I've done edges on every drum that jim carnelly owns Literally every single drum, but he won't let me touch that noble and coulee It's like an omen. I mean, but yes, I think that's also worth noting too is even from the very beginning pork pie Is not really just pork pie. I mean you've done a lot of you do a lot of work on other drums You've painted other drums. I mean, so uh, obviously the brand pork pie you sell pork pie drums But you as a person have I'm sure you've worked on every brand of drums in existence Oh, and I still do to this day. Yeah, I work on everything. Yeah, and we painted. I mean here. I'm here in my office Uh, I've done work for uh for the cult Uh pennywise faith no more guns and roses poison megadeth Uh Black Sabbath, uh better than Ezra Um, my fissana when he was with the down boys or warrants Um, I painted for zizi top van halen. Um I mean, you know The total of that caro kit Hey, I mean, why don't you while we're on that note because like that's kind of I heard I remember reading somewhere that you painted Like chad smith's kit and things like that like what um What is that entail like what what what is like that process? So they get a drum set from their sponsored from pearl from yamaha Whoever like are all those instances you just gave getting a custom unique paint job basically for the drum kit Well, it either goes to uh, it goes two different ways So let's say the chad smith, uh, uh kit I did I did I participated in two kits with chad smith So one kid the first one we did um, I have to keep it clean Uh, but he wanted, uh He wanted certain body parts over all of the drums And he wanted to very Picasso looking So the the drum set was done with myself And my very very very close friend johnny douglas who paints drums for everybody And he's I mean his his artwork is phenomenal so uh he um That's the the it was johnny and I who did worked on uh zizi top stuff and Uh, uh the van halen stuff because he was alex's guy for 20 years You know a long time sure So johnny called me up and said I've got i'm doing this uh kit for chad And I need your help so we he did he basically did the artwork the graphics because that's not my thing But I did I did all the prep work and the base colors and then he did his thing And then I did the the top coating and the sanding and buffing and uh, you know edges and all that stuff After that so he from what I remember he used that kit once or twice and it was stolen And that's when we went and I I still have one of the bass drum heads here That's when we did that really cool octopus kit. Yeah, the red hot rhythm method. I believe tape had that in it Uh, his like instructional tape. Yeah, right So, uh, so johnny called me up and said, okay, we're doing a we're doing another kit for chad because that one was stolen So the all of us met at my house um And uh, we had I had chatted at the house and and johnny d And we were going over the design and it's like oh, I wanted to look like this And uh, and I want this and I you know, I want it to look like the ocean So I want the the bottom half to be uh, like uh look like ocean water. So I took the um Shells and painted them white and then I sprayed pearl over the top of that And then I did a fade from the bottom up of turquoise And then on the bass drum I faded uh, uh from the sides of the bass drum down to the bottom Was turquoise. So it looked like it was, you know, it looked like a waterline basically Yeah, and then they go to johnny d and he does all the graphics and then they come back to me and then I do all the all the other stuff Wow And then so that that example though would go across most of those artists like that you mentioned Yeah, well, some guys just want to want a color. So if they come to me with a with a color idea They they just say oh, I want uh, you know, I have I want it blue and I'm like, well, you know, anybody can do blue Let's let's make it a cool blue And well, what are you what are you talking about with a cool blue? And I said, well, instead of just doing blue Why don't we do a multi layer candy? Oh, you know over black pearl and you know over Silver sparkle or you know, whatever And so some come come with the tech and then some I I do On my own because they just want a standard color Not really standard, but they want a custom color, but that's something I can do on my own Yeah, gotcha that makes perfect sense. So um All right, we were in the 90s which are you late 80s early 90s kind of on your timeline here, which as we mentioned in the beginning 90s was really a kind of a big time for pork pie. I mean, that's kind of when you Came into your own and started to really really blow up. So so what was what happened there? What was that like? So, uh, what really, um Was a pivotal moment was the the kit that I made for uh, uh primus And that kit came about from my uh, my very close friend, uh, his name is brain who has uh Was the drummer from primus after uh herb left and brain has done a million different things and um So brain ordered a kit from me And he and herb were tight because of the san francisco thing so brain told uh herb you should go to this guy And that's when I made that big giant amber kit form. Uh, and so the the funny part about that is I was working on The kit for brain I was working on herb's kit and both of those had a deadline And then I get a call from alan white from yes Who wanted a custom finish on his kit? So I was working on this a big kit for brain a huge kit for herb and then a huge kit for alan white And they all had the same deadline So I was working. I mean literally I was working around the clock uh getting all those done and um So it was it was working on those at that time and that's also about the time that I did my first nam show And uh, I had uh, no idea What nam was I had no idea how nam worked. I knew nothing about it So, uh, of course, I was behind schedule and getting the parts I was behind schedule And uh, there was a period Uh, I tell the guys here at the shop all the time. There was one night that I was working I had worked, you know, two or three days without sleep and barely any food and So on a snare drum You uh, you have to throw off a butt plate And then you have on the bottom hoop you have corresponding holes in the hoop so you can put the snare straps through So I put I was putting a snare drum together and I put that Snare gate on the on the hoop. I put it in the wrong spot Then I had to take it off and put it back on and I put it in another wrong spot I had to take it off and then I put it in another wrong spot and I just said, okay I have to get some sleep. Yeah, you're moving too fast. You're doing you're like You're you're hurting yourself by not resting and Taking time to do it, right? Yeah, but I was young who knew, you know, you know, you're invincible when you're young I mean I just have to say on that note before I mean, I feel like we are sitting here My excitement for this interview is 100% because of tim alexander because of herb and brain Because of growing up having herb or growing up having brains lessons shredding the ripis on the naranarad on Over and over and just seeing him playing with like, you know He'd have something zipped all the way up and he's playing and his mom is saying brain. You're ready And I just went to go. What are those drums? And I remember he had a he had like an ambassador on his like on his batter head on his bass drum And I I didn't ever I'd always seen a clear head and I was like, I didn't know you could do that And just all this stuff and pork pie and the lugs it just stuck into my mind and then of course tim alexander and It just made me honestly obsessed with pork pie where I used to look on as a kid Indoorstorm.com the music store and I would look at their pork pie kits And it's just like you like like another kid would look at like, you know baseball cards or something it would just be looking at images of pork pie kits and If this somehow trickles down to brain just knowing that the influence that you know something like that that tape can have both on Influence of what kind of drums said I like and and all that stuff It was huge. So that that was a big I'm glad you said that was the big breakthrough moment I was hoping you would one of the other ones was uh, I had never Never met a gentleman named Mike Fasano And he called me up and he said hey, I've got uh, I play on cruise ships And I have a uh, it was an old lug wood kit And he said I I want to have the edges done So he brought it over to my house and I did the edges and he loved what You know how the drums sounded after that So at the time matt soram was sleeping on his uh on his couch Before he got into the cult I think he was uh, who was he playing with? Uh, josey cotton is who he was playing with at the time Before he got the cult so he was sleeping on Mike's couch And then he brought a kit over for uh for an edge job And then after that then um faith no more The um Drum tech his name was feely. I get a call from him. He said yeah I just talked to fasano and he said uh that I should have your uh, have you do edges on uh, on um, uh feely's kit Wow, Mike Michael's kid and um So I did that and then for years after that when either one of those guys got a kit from yamaha It would come to me first and then go to them man still still today I mean I get stuff before the guys get it Wow, and we cut the edges and you know make it make sure everything's cool Then the guys get it and that goes to rehearsal or what you know, whatever they're doing I want to note too that mike fasano we we've talked on like social media and stuff He's just he's a drum guy like very nice guy But in general just very enthusiastic about drums and the history of it and all that stuff But I mean faith no more Primus These bands are very like that era. I mean you were right You seem to be always in the right place at the right time with these with these like like Seismic changes in like culture if you know what I mean like like the drum industry changing It's clean living it pays off every time Well, I'll tell you one thing that I think and I'm not trying to make myself look better than anybody else but um What I charge when I do an edge job What I charged back then Is what I charge now really and I and It doesn't matter It doesn't matter who the guy is Let's say faith no more or guns and roses at the time biggest band in the world. I'm working for them I charge the same price for everybody across the board. I don't try to gouge anybody. I don't try to make more money I charge for what I do and I move on I get them what they need when they tell me that there's a deadline I work on that deadline and I get it done an example of that is I received a phone call years ago from uh, my uh My friend joe hibbs who passed away five years ago. I think something like that um at the time he was working at tama and joe hibbs is an interesting interesting guy The thing that makes him interesting is when he was young in texas He was always always played drums, but he got a job working in a drum store and I don't remember the the name of the drum store, but he told me that When he was working at this drum store His job was on saturday to load into station wagons Giant boxes of ledwig drums You know from from ringo, you know, that's when everybody had to play a ledwig drum set So his job was literally to load You know the the drums into the back of station wagons. That's what he did Then he graduated from that and to the sales floor And then after that then he went to work for pro mark And he worked for pro mark for years as their artist relations guy and then he went to tama And from tama he went to premiere and from premiere he went to maypex But after my first nam show That we just talked about a minute ago I received a phone call from him and he said he said, you know, I saw your stuff at nam last week whatever it was and he said I work at tama and There's tama drums and ibanez are owned by the same company hoshino So he said we have a custom shop here at my office for guitars But we don't have anything that we can do to offer people for drums And he said we would like you to be the tama custom shop So he said what I'd like to do is I'd like to send a kit over to you And do your thing to it. We'll get it back. We'll take a look at it And so I worked for I worked I always I always like to say I worked for joe hibbs Because he was the guy so I I worked for joe hibbs when he was at tama at premiere and at maypex so at At at tama I I did edges for him all the time one year. I covered 11 drum sets for lars from metallica Uh that he was buying from them and giving them away to people I have no idea who they who they went to or why they went to them. I have no idea But he's with my house with uh with a kit and rap and he would say get it done for me and I get it done um, but one of the One of the cooler things that he did while he was at tama was he called me up one day and he said We have a mega death. There's I have a gold record from them for this job Um, he said they want a acrylic drum set and nobody was making acrylic at the time besides zikos So he said I'm going to send you all of the parts And the band will send you all the shells And I need you to put it together So the first thing I had to do is I figured I had to figure out how do you drill acrylic because it's not wood Yeah, so I went to a acrylic place and I said, how do you drill acrylic? And he said, you know, you do this this, you know special drill bit this you have to have a backer on it So it doesn't blow out the back, you know all that stuff so I ended up making two drum sets in acrylic for mega death And uh, there was a an unbelievable hard deadline when everything had to be done And I worked around the clock Uh, four days straight getting this done. I mean, I never took a break And as I was putting the heads on the last kit A semi truck pulled up in front of my house and the guy The the the truck driver was taking Road cases off and wheeling them back and as I put the heads on them They were going right in the cases And back on the truck and then they went to arizona for the first show That's a long way to come since dropping the noble and cooly drum to perfectly timing up your mega death kit Right, right That's awesome So uh, from that I got a uh, I got a platinum record from them that I'm looking at right now and uh When I finished and that uh, uh those last drums went in the cases. I ordered a big pizza And uh, watch some tv and then I slept for a couple of days That's how it's so funny. You see that because like if I get like like video And if I get a big gig and I get some extra money usually the first thing I do is like order a calzone Because it's like that's how I that's how I celebrate. It's like, yeah, you have to celebrate some pizza or a calzone Right. I love that. All right. Well, let's kind of move forward here in the timeline. So the 90s I mean you're cranking through a bunch of cool stuff What's your I mean You had to have some staff. Did you have people helping you at that point? You I mean you are It's just you just the head hog when I moved into this building. I had uh, I had one part-time employee And so it was just me and chuck and uh Right before I moved in here And the reason I moved here into this building here that I'm in now which was 25 24 years ago, and I know it's 24 years ago because we wanted the business out of the house when uh For when we had kids So, you know, because I didn't want guys like you coming around with my children around, you know Yeah, deviance deviant drum guys. Yeah So I want to show you this so for the video. So This is a 2002 pork pie snare that I got this was at guitar center So I know you've you've had some work and there was some series that were just with guitar center Uh signed on the inside. I was 12 Uh, I got this I worked at a grocery store slash butcher Uh, I bought a star classic kit And a lot of it was like scraping blood off the floor Which is kind of funny with pork pie and all that meat related stuff But um, and I earlier than that I used to have a pork pie t-shirt in fourth grade And I would wear it to school and I'm sure everyone would be like what the hell is this But I love that shirt. I think I lost it. I have to get another one. But um This drum I used to get so many compliments on it. Uh, it's kind of I think it's a 12 I mean, it's a pretty small snare Um, but I used to get compliments on on it all the time You did transition you you had a partnership with guitar center, correct? Never a partnership. I just sell to them I'm one of their vendors. So, um One of my closest friends his name was walter earl um He knew a gentleman at guitar center. His name was john parker who no longer a guitar center But um, he said hey, uh, are you interested in selling some stuff to guitar center? And I said sure And I think at the time guitar center was Four stores or five stores something like that. Hmm. And I said I'd love to you know, why not? Um, you know, it's another vendor another dealer They had sherman oaks hollywood Um, all the stores were I think san francisco. Maybe all the stores were fairly local to la And um, so, uh, walter and uh, john parker and myself we all went out to lunch And he said, yeah, we yeah, you have to love to try, um, You know try a couple of a couple of snare drums So he said maybe we'll do like, um, two or three snare drums per store and at the time I was like, wow That's you know, that's eight drums. That's nine drums. That's 12 drums. You know, yeah And then when uh, this also shows how old it was because the order came over as a fax Oh boy, and it came over as 40 snare drums And I thought my head was gonna explode, you know, I'm like 40 snare drums. How do you do 40 snare drums? So I got everything together. I figured out how to do it, you know With chuck and I actually I actually have a little photograph Of chuck and I when we finished all 40 drums We took the drums and put them in my driveway because I was working at the house We put down some uh, some moving blankets And we stacked those drums out There and we took a picture of us behind those snare drums And that was the first order that I did for a guitar center And then that relationship has just grown over the years. Um, I mean, it's a it's a fantastic relationship. It always has been Um, they they've always treated me I mean everybody hears all these horror stories about guitar center guitar center this and you know, they don't pay their bills And they don't do this and they treat people like crap and you know on and on and on That is so far away from the truth They have always from day one. They have always treated me like a little brother And still to this day If I have a problem, I call up glen glenn noise I call up jared. I call up jordan I call up whoever I need to call And whatever I need At any time They don't bust my chops over discounts. They don't do I mean, it's completely opposite of everything that you think And that's why I still work with them. I work with them very closely I've done a lot of projects for them that nobody knows about Because it was stuff for drum off. It was stuff for this. It was stuff for that. It was You know, we we have one of the original Alex van Halen kits here in our hollywood store and we need octabons make us octabons. I'm okay. I got it You know, I mean I I do stuff with them all the time and they do stuff for me all the time Yeah No, that's I'm glad you said that because that sometimes you do hear negative things, but uh, I worked there in high school I had a good time uh, it was fun to To do I did work in Kentucky because I'm on I'm in I'm in Cincinnati So I'm right by Kentucky and the minimum wage at that point was five dollars and 50 cents So but again, I was like 16. So I was like whatever, but I'm like, oh my god. How do you survive off that? Um, I mean, it's it's a it's it's a great relationship for you So so the drums like this one that I have that I got there in 2002 That would have come straight from your shop been handmade by you guys and uh, That's awesome. I always I kind of knew that because I I guess as we go on We'll get into more about because there's the little squealer kits, right, which yeah now those are produced Overseas, correct Yes, they are so from day one I have these books Oh, yeah, and Everything that I make and that I sign Goes in the books Oh, man And you have all from drum number one. I have I have a book here. That's drum number one till what we're working on now And uh, in in wood drums, we are up to uh, almost 80,000. So we've made 80,000 Individual drums and then for acrylics that has another another numbering system Um where for acrylics, we've made about uh, almost 20,000 Man, it's awesome to know that my you know little drum that I used forever is uh in your book I mean because sometimes you don't think that that's the case. I mean you just Your brain goes to that you're some big corporation and you're cranking these out and it's just a number And here's a drum. Here's a drum. Here's a drum Uh, but I I knew I mean you'd sign the inside so it's pretty cool. Um, but so Unless I'm skipping something here What what goes on then moving forward with getting into the little squealers and into the 2000s and and things like that Sure. So the little squealer came about. Um, because uh, I I took a trip to taiwan to the factory. I'm going to say 2004 2005 around there And um for guitar center, we started making a uh, uh, uh, this was still when uh small diameter snare drums like yours, uh small diameter snare drums were still a thing So they called me up and they said, okay, we want to make a little five by 12 We want it black stain and we want black hardware on it with a satin finish Like great. How many you want me? They said 400. I'm like killer So the day that I finished making those was I mean literally the day that I finished making those was the day that I left for taiwan They sold unbelievably well And the guys at guitar center said, uh, you know, if we if there's a way that we can Bring this in A little bit lower cost We can make more margin. You can make more margin. Everybody will be happy Uh, that's what we'd like to do So when I was over in taiwan I said, okay, I have a new project and this is what I'd like it to be And that's how the little squealer was born So the logo for that Was uh, uh, I wanted it to look like a baby pig that was uh, like When you hit the drum It was doing that Yeah closing his eyes and kind of that's how the that was the incarnation of the uh, the logo for the little squealer Hmm, and I will say that uh, ron danette who's been on the show twice has always been a big advocate for Things made in like taiwan and in the in you know in the east because he says they're really good at what they do These are not just like factories that are just churning things out. They care about the instruments He's he's really made that apparent to me in our Talks of like, yeah, this is not you don't you hear made in taiwan or something Sometimes people see it as a negative, but it shouldn't be seen as that It should be and to me too like for a young kid who wants to get a nice pork pie drum set I can't think of anything cooler than that. They can actually afford it then Well one thing to give for everybody everybody in the world here's from bill Keep in mind That every metal piece that goes on any drum that is made in the that is sold in the world Uh from from a major tama yamaha dw Uh me ron Uh gms Um, um, I mean go through the list Sure, every metal part comes from taiwan Sonar Everything comes from taiwan There's just no way around it dw probably has things that they make at their shop that they put on it But the the symbol stand Comes from taiwan Yeah, so clearly they're doing something right and they know what they're doing and they're producing High quality stuff. So uh, so then the little squealer when when the kits arrived and you got it Everything kind of figured out with how to make them and all that stuff Uh, I mean huge success right everything was I mean guitar center must have loved that. Yeah, they uh, the kits have uh, we've we've had a good and bad runs of kits um The worst the worst one and I do mean the worst one that we did was not because it was a bad kit It was because of timing the um We did one that was uh red like a red sparkle and uh red sparkle lacquer and that kit Uh, I would say sometime in two between two the end of 2007 and 2008 Whenever the the crash of the economy was yeah, let's say that the the economy crashed on a monday Those kits arrived at guitar center on tuesday Geez bad timing It was horrible people aren't buying anything They aren't buying anything Yeah So those kits went into the stores and it took forever to sell them because that we were in the middle of a You know a horrible recession And it was just timing Yeah, all it was was timing. Yep, but you know the black one that we did we did we did probably 6700 of those kits with the guitar center We probably did uh, there was the first black one. We probably did We did probably five six hundred of them and we did one with satin chrome. We probably did five or six hundred of them Then the uh, we did one that had a 24 inch bass drum black cherry lacquer We probably did uh 500 of those You know and for me those are huge numbers for For for dw that's you know, that's a day You know, that's a that's a tuesday. That's a good point though because you say that and you think to yourself Oh, but you know Maybe pearl is doing 20 000 drum sets in a month or something or a day or whatever But I mean, but again, you got to keep everything into perspective of You you hang and you kind of play with the big boys, but you really are an independent guy And it seems like you're cognizant of not split spreading yourself too thin I I don't want to be I don't want to be right now where the company is Be because of covet, you know again got kicked in the you know what but Uh, uh, you know 2019 That's about the size of that. I want the company to be I don't want it to be any bigger than that Big and I'll tell you why There's companies out there which I'm not going to talk about but they're trying to be the next dw And they're going to go under Yeah You can't you can't become d it took 50 years for dw to get to where they are right now Sure, you don't do that in five. No No When you grow too fast, that's when a company goes under when you have too many orders That's when a company goes under and if anybody thinks i'm wrong Look it up. That's when companies go under is when they grow too fast. You have to grow very very very very slow Because your cash flow will never catch up to your production ever Yeah, no that seems like business I don't want to say business 101 because very very smart people have fallen into the trap of of doing it incorrectly But it's uh, it's it's a slippery slope But uh, you just did a very nice job of kind of zooming forward a little bit and saying 2019 is a good fit for you Obviously, that was pre-covid, but well, I mean, you know in the 2000s Let's maybe no no one had a good time in 2020 2021 was a little better. I guess but uh in the you know 2010s and let's say now 2022 How are you feeling about things? I mean is everything going, you know Like like anything monumental that happened in the 2010s you want to talk about or uh, just kind of where things are today Well from 20 2010 that's kind of when everything kind of smoothed out 2010 to about uh 2017, you know give or take It was hard for me personally, you know, because uh, I lost in that span of time. I lost both my folks Oh, i'm sorry. That was a tough time Um, but you know the business has always been the business, you know, we've always done what we do I'm not trying to be anything that I'm not Um, I don't I don't want it to be big. I want it to be manageable Um, I mean because it's hard enough already at the size is it at the size that it is You know, there's my account years ago told me that there's um There's uh Sales landmarks basically the first landmark is 500 000 in sales in a year And then once you get past that when you go past a million And then you do a million five, but everything changes when you hit two million And I've talked to many many people who have told me the exact same thing Everything changes when you hit two million dollars in sales And that's with anything. Yeah, it's not just drunk. It's with anything. Yeah, so everything has been on course After 2000 after the recession in 2008 The business changed for everybody across the board sure And then it changed again when we uh got hit with cobin After 2008 it was it was harder to sell But you just had to you had to adapt. Yeah, so as we adapted we were still able able to do well um And but like I said, I I I really have no ambition of being something that I'm not keeping it manageable And keeping it fun You know last two years. I haven't been fun. I haven't been fun for anybody. So Yeah, but but you know keeping it fun Is is a big big part of it for me because you know, I want to be inspired by what I do I don't want to do it. I mean if I if I'm doing something Just because I can invoice it. I'm not into that. Yeah, I I would rather go without But the things that that came to me in that time there are there are two things that happened that were The next pivotal parts for me The first thing was and I don't remember the year and I'm going to say possibly 2015 Maybe even 14 The company that we all deal with over in taiwan the name of the company is reliance international Who are unbelievable people? I mean they're Some of my dearest friends So at the nan show, um One of the the u.s Rep his name is mike sales He came over. He always came over to me, you know, big hugs. How's the family? You know, very, you know, we're good friends We got the pleasantries out of the way basically and he said hey, listen, uh, we just bought, uh, rogers from yamaha And we would like you to do all of the many the u.s. Manufacturing for rogers And he said is that something that you are interested in and I said Uh, yes, yeah When do I start? Yeah, you know, when do we start? Oh, so basically, uh, we started with prototypes They sent me this shell that they had uh that they had made that for everybody's information We have tried to have it made over here Nobody can figure it out. The shell is unbelievable Right. Hmm. So what makes the shell? What what is the like that you can divulge to us? What makes it so special? Well, it's a it's a three ply shell and each shell each ply I think is two mil Two millimeters thick two or three So it's a three ply shell maple poplar and maple and the thing that people can't figure out Is how to uh, uh, how to bend the maple because it's so thick because maple wants to break. Yeah Yeah So there there are companies like craviado Or eric soy There are different companies that make solids all the time And they could figure out how to bend it But the thing is This is a production thing It's not like you're making one or two or three or 20. Yeah We receive, uh, I've got a shipment of roger stuff that's on the water right now And I think there's like a hundred six and a half by 14 shells on that on that shipment. It's being able to facilitate Yeah, the product consistently. So yes, exactly So I have no idea how they how they do it. They won't tell anybody how they do it Which I'm I think is pretty cool. Yeah, they developed a technology to be able to do this and nobody knows how they do it So it has the three ply shell and then it's got a two ply maple reinforcing ring And it's a ply shell But if you hold it on your finger and you tap it the shell sounds like it is a solid steam bent maple shell Man, that's awesome. That's what's cool. Are you working on the rogers kits as well? Or are you mainly just I'm doing everything for rogers You know when when reliance bought, uh, um, they they bought rogers from yamaha Rod yamaha had it for 15 years 20 years something like that The only thing they did on it was put it on entry level kits. They just put that script logo on entry level kits So when they bought it The there was nothing There was nothing to buy except for the name Yamaha owned the name. That's the only thing that existed. There was no tooling. There was no You know, there was no this there was no that you they bought a name And they retooled all of the hardware from nothing So it started out from zero to where we are now So we started out that project with, um With prototypes and They sent me I think they sent me five or six vintage rogers six and a half by 14 dynasonics because that's what we were copying At that time, we weren't going to get into metal drums. We're still not going to get into doing, uh Prom over steel because you can buy those for you know, 100 bucks. They're everywhere Um, but the six and a half by 14 dynast is what everybody wants But they sent me the the vintage drums and then they sent me the shelves and they said we want you to copy it But we want it better and I said, of course, we're going to make it better. I'm not going to Mess around we're going to we're going to make this cool. Yeah so we uh The first edge that I cut on it, uh that drum went to steve jordan And he played it for like a minute and he goes, nope, that's not it And I said, well, okay, well, what's wrong And they they told me what was wrong and I said, okay, I know how to fix it. So I I made another one and what I did was I changed the bearing edges So I changed the edges and I sent it over to them and he played it for a couple minutes And he said this is perfect right on the money and then that's a snare drum that he took out with That year that he took out with uh john mayer So he did a whole summer tour with that snare drum So then we went into production and we had normal growing pains of Oh, what's going on with this finish? It's not working well. It's wrinkling. It's you know, we've got a shell problem But we figured it out together So now we I mean we do a ton of work for rogers. I mean we do a lot of work for rogers Yesterday friday, um, I was on the phone with a gentleman named ken freddenberg Who is uh, basically he's heading up the rogers, um He's the rogers guy over here. It's he ken freddenberg who i've known forever and then uh, gentleman gentleman named jim stanek who who handles all the posting on the rogers, um Official facebook page. He does all the social on that So it's ken and jim and uh myself and I told ken yesterday We were talking about The brogers program and I said the coolest part about it Is it's a legacy and the even cooler part about it is we're making history We do everything on rogers like we do on my stuff. Everything is done by hand We don't we mark it on the same temp. We made our own rogers templates on the cardboard Dividing up pie, you know to figure out where the lugs go We made all of our own templates everything that we do is done by hand And that's what makes it cool That's awesome. I mean, it's uh, like you said, it's history. It's bringing back one of the big american brands That is just a such a part of drum history and um, right I don't know. I think people can trust that it's I think your hands touching it And and this the fact that you're such a small team of people working on it It kind of makes it like Uh, it just gives confidence that it's gonna be great And I've seen Yeah, exactly and I I've seen pictures of the kits and everything and they're just so cool I mean, so you just again, that's a nice way to kind of bring us up to today Obviously pork pie people can find Pork pie drums and you post a lot of cool videos on social media and your painting and you're working on it And we didn't even talk about the thrones. I've had a pork pie throne for so long I mean it is just right. It's like it's like treating your your butt to like, you know You go from a normal old just kind of cheapo throne to a pork pie and and it's just Uh, they're they're also just kind of a staple of I feel like you've you've been people have copied the style a little over the years A lot of people have copied it So the thrones came about was me me being at a gig On a sunday afternoon. I remember the gig And I was sitting at the bar during a break and I looked over and the uh The bar stool next to me was was covered in uh green sparkle vinyl And I was staring at it. I I just stared at it like this And I'm like that looks like a drum throne So at the time I had a guy uh here in la that was making the tops for me, but we were just doing black and um I called him up and I said hey denis Do you remember that stuff that was in dune buggies when we were kids? You know that uh that sparkly crap that they had in dune buggies I said do you have any of that stuff lying around? He goes I've got rolls of that stuff that I can't give away nobody wants it I'm like, okay, so make me four different tops And what colors do you have and he says well, I've got gold green silver And red or blue or whatever it was And I said great. What can we put on the top? And I said and let's let's make it you know make it funky. Yeah So he goes well, I have some leopard material. Why don't we put that with the gold? I said perfect and then for the um For the silver he said I have a zebra print. Why don't we do the zebra? And I said perfect and picked two other ones for the other colors. I don't care what they are And uh, I remember the day I I uh had those samples And I went out to a guitar center. I scheduled a meeting And they said okay. What do you got? And I took them out and I put them on the on the table in front of them they're like We're gonna sell the you know what out of these and they ordered and uh, we we do every year we do Covid is you know screwed everything up, but in a good year we'll do Between four and five thousand thrones every year And that's been for 25 years. Wow. Yeah, and I keep saying I say I keep saying at some point we're gonna run out of asses Everyone will have a I mean I have a zebra with the silver around the side that I got a guitar center in I mean probably 2001 Or something like or 2002 2003 maybe um, yeah, I mean and I've had it's been it's been great I still use it all the time. It's right behind me. I mean it's it's it's become like A ubiquitous like it's like a staple item that you just you just see and you just take for granted almost now So here here's a story about the throne. So that guy Dennis that I was talking about he We have this great relationship for years 20 years And in 2015 it started getting weird 2016 it was really weird And 2017 it was not tolerable So the the guy at my shop who handles thrones for me his name is Gus and uh We were just at our peak of frustration with you know what we were getting or not getting from them and uh Gus and I were sitting here. I was in this chair and uh Gus came to me and he said he goes uh so uh Why are we not making thrones here? I said I don't know. Hmm Let's figure it out So we had never had any experience with anything to do with cloth And when I say no experience, I mean no experience at all So between Gus and I we figured out how to Well, first off, you got to figure out where to buy the vinyl the side the silver like in your case Mm-hmm. There's another supplier for the top. We had to figure that out. We had to source all that stuff on our own Then we had to figure out What kind of plywood and where do you get the plywood? and uh in side On your throne, there's a piece of plywood on the bottom on the inside. There's t-nuts That's a screw screw into Where do you get t-nuts? How do you get the holes in? The wood first off, how do you make it round? Yeah, then how do you how do you get the t-nuts in? Where do you get the t-nuts? Where do you get the vinyl? How do you we learned we taught ourselves how to screen print the vinyl because we had never done it before Then we had to source foam and if you don't know there's like nine million different types of foam in the world And I mean when I say nine million, there's probably more than that. I didn't know that Then we had to figure out. Okay. How did we sew it? You know because it has to be sewn together Yeah, so then we were we weren't interested in doing the sewing here So then we had to go out in the world and find somebody that would sew these things for us at a decent price And then after that then we had to figure out how to put it to put it together Where do you get a staple a staple gun? What staples do you use that that are made for vinyl? And so yeah because we use some staples and they just cut the vinyl Oh, I so we had to figure out the type of staples the staple gun Uh the compressor that you know, so we basically figured out how to do all of this on our own So since uh late 2017, we've been making all the throne tops in house Makes sense. I mean you guys again if you it's it's such a part of your business that why not designate a person to do it Cut out middlemen middlemen where there's problems and just do it yourself and I'm sure there There wasn't a dip in quality. If not, it probably went up in quality that was more Quality, I mean as soon as we started making them we were getting calls from our dealers They they I mean all of them said hey, you know, whatever you got you guys change something Whatever you change don't change back because the quality is is you know 10 times better than it was before and the quality before was killer. Yeah, and now it's amazing I mean I can again. I have one that's I don't even know how old 15 plus years old And it's perfectly fine. So to get even better than that is awesome I'm glad I brought that up because I was like man. I mean that's a huge part of your business That's like and it's good advertising. I mean it just says pork pie on percussion on the side and can I can I have one more? One more bit. Yeah, please So are you familiar with a gentleman named russ miller? Yeah, I've never met him, but I see him on social media and all that stuff Yeah so 2012 I think around there I received a call from joe hibbs He came up again And uh, he said hey, I'm gonna I want you to start working with uh with a guy named russ miller And me because sometimes I can be a real Uh, a real idiot I'm like who the hell is russ miller and then I looked I looked him up online and I'm like, oh, mr. Miller. How are you? Hello, mr. Miller So he started playing he left yamaha and started playing maypex drums and we did a Basically With him everything that he owns. I've done Done the edges on And he owns a lot of stuff so joe hibbs passed away And joe hibbs was the the product guy artist relations and product guy at Uh at maypex and that's how he had I that's how I was involved with joe with uh with maypex So when he passed away then russ started doing all of the product design with maypex So all that new stuff that you see was russ miller and myself russ would come up with the uh with the concept And then he would say this is what I want and I would figure out how to make it Then we would make it it would go to him at his studio and then it would be sent over to maypex to uh copy so when russ was with uh When russ was with yamaha He had that product that was called the groove wedge. Do you remember that? Yeah, I remember seeing that when he left yamaha yamaha um decided to stop manufacturing the groove wedge Which russ was a part owner up. He owned 50 of the patent so for years probably starting in 2015 For years russ who's unbelievably busy all the time He started to say and hey one of these days we're gonna make we're gonna remake the groove wedge one of these days. It's coming Just be ready when I say we're gonna do it. We're gonna do it So probably I'm gonna say 2018 I think He came to me and he goes he goes billy We're doing it now. We're doing we're gonna make a groove wedge He said but we have to figure out a way to work around the yamaha patent So he goes because you know, we really don't want to get sued So I don't know if you have ever seen one of my snare drums, which is a um seven ply shell And a seven ply shell so it's two seven ply shells and in the middle Is a piece of copper and I make those here. I make them on my own so The he told me to start working on an idea Of how are we going to make this new product? So This is what I came up with Here's the front of it that you see on the outside This is how it's mounted to the snare drum. Yep And this is three eight ply shells With two pieces of copper in the middle. This is called the x-click And again, it's mounted by aluminum mounts that go into the bottom And um So we started we we started prototyping I made rust First off I made him one that had no copper And then I made him a piece that had one piece of copper in the front And then I made him one one one piece of copper in the back And then one with both pieces of copper and then when he played it He said the the the two pieces of copper is the way to go because it sounds great Then we had to figure out how to mount it So, you know, I came up with this kind of elaborate mount and then we shaved it down to These two different two small aluminum mounts that are with that we call mono mounts Yeah, and they go through tension rods on the snare drum and the idea with this is you get a really good sidestick And the reason that rust came up with the groove wedge was because he was uh, he was recording A uh record with a 12 inch snare drum and they said okay. Well, we want a side stick on this He goes well, I can't do it on a 12 So I'll they had to they had to you know, they had to uh, uh, re-record That part, you know punch him in Um, so he could record the the the sidestick So that's when he came up with the idea with yamaha. Let's make this so you can put it on any size drum Get a great sidestick sound He came to me and said, okay, let's figure out, uh, how how are we going to do this? So This is this is another product that I came up with The jigs and the fixtures and the saws and I figured out I have all kinds of things that I made here Which is what we use to make these, uh make these, uh X clicks our first year of sales was, uh last year Full the full year um, we came out in late 2020 2019 and 2020 was prototyping and you know figuring things out So when we were planning on this we said if we can make if we can sell 3 000 of these That would be killer Yeah And it would be amazing if we sold 5 000 of these Our first year in business we I made these little things here. I made over 10 000 of them. Oh my god Wow And again on this we had to figure everything out how to how to I've never used a pad printer before so That's how the logo you can see the logo right there. It's done with a pad printer We had to figure out a pad printer. We had to figure out what finish we had to we had to figure everything out and So that that has been a big part of the business And working with russ has just been Amazing. I mean he's yeah, you know, you're a great friend. I've seen it on social media pop up I feel like it kind of caught a wave two of people. I've seen it a lot and and if I'm not mistaken I know uh, Sarah Hagan Uh was just involved. So we're on the same network of podcast the drum click that's part of like big fat snare drums Network and I my show's on it her shows on it and Sarah is awesome But I know she was just working with you guys. Um, pretty cool, man I mean, I I your name. I'm looking at the social media. Your name is right on there But you kind of just like again, you just you forget everything that you've you're involved in I mean, do you want to tell people where they can find so As we're getting closer to the end here Let's start to kind of tell people where they can find things now with the that's it's groove x percussion Correct would be the the kind of brand that that is under Yeah, it's a groove x.com. Okay groove x.com. Well, bill. This has just been awesome. Um, I've had a blast talking with you I'm gonna let everyone know that bill is going to give even more of his time Which he's been very generous We're gonna do the patreon bonus episode and we're gonna talk about bill's martial arts karate background Which he's got some amazing stories and just He's the real deal I mean if you don't want to come across bill in a dark alley on a bad night because he knows what he's doing So, um, but really there's some cool information That that he will share with us. So if you want to hear that go to drumhistorypodcast.com There's a patreon link and for a couple bucks a month you get those bonus episodes with tons of really cool People who've been on the show and you hear all kinds of great stuff. So Anyway on that note bill. Thank you for sharing all all of this your time Everything this has just been amazing to finally get to meet you and uh, and you know Hopefully maybe down the road when there's more cool stuff. You're doing we can have you back on but For now, thank you for being here. Absolutely. It was a lot of fun and I uh, I appreciate you asking me